Local fitness trainer, Brian Cole, is passionate about self-improvement: for himself and others.
Born in Maine, his family traveled around the world until his father, a physical therapist with the United States Army, received his final assignment at Fort Monroe.

“I grew up in a home where helping others came naturally and discussions of how the body functions, moves and heals were just a part of everyday conversation,” Cole explains.

After graduating from Hampton High School, Cole studied business at East Carolina University and Christopher Newport University. He raised three daughters and one son while working in carpet sales from 1976 to 1994.
“In 1994, I set out to do personal training as a sideline,” Cole says of beginning to work in the hobby he loved as a moonlighting gig.

Within a year, he was booked solid. He followed demand and the business went full-time. He now runs Personal Training Associates (PTA) and is certified as a personal fitness trainer, massage therapist and post-rehab conditioning specialist.
“I am thankful I’ve been able to give four trainers a living,” Cole says. “It really feels good to have something you started support folks and their families.”

“Brian gave me the opportunity to earn a living and provide for a family of my own, doing something that I really like doing,” says Joey Wallen, who has been a PTA trainer since 2004. “We’re friends in the studio as well as outside.”
PTA operates two studios in Port Warwick and one in Hilton Village, with a new location opening in Oyster Point by fall.
“Fitness is not about age. We all need to build new lean muscle tissue or the aging process will combine with reduced activity to replace our natural muscle with fat,” Cole explains.

“It’s more about the whole person and making sure he or she can move well and be healthy for a lifetime,” Wendy Stephens, a trainer with PTA since 2005, says. “Brian doesn’t see limits in people.”

Cole’s 30-minute exercise routine incorporates yoga, Pilates, Somatics and Feldenkrais and gently coaxes an individual’s joints to more comfortable movements through a greater range—movements that are stabilized by leaner and stronger muscles.
“Weeks after I started training with Brian I noticed gains in strength and energy,” client Mary White says. “The program Brian designed for me dramatically improved long-standing back and shoulder limitations.”

While training his own clients and overseeing PTA, Cole writes the award-winning, bimonthly column, “To Your Health” for the Oyster Pointer. In addition to contributing to local organizations like Habitat for Humanity and the SPCA, he has traveled a long distance over the last few years to do more.

Cole climbed Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro in 2010 to bring awareness to the nonprofit People to People’s efforts to build a recreation center in the East End section of Newport News. He raised more than $20,000 on that trip, though altitude sickness prevented him from reaching the summit.

On that trip, Cole spent time with the climbing team’s cook, Kefas Mollel. Tanzanians speak Swahili, and Kefas was learning English at the time, his eye on promotion.
“‘I used to be porter,’” Cole says in Kefas’ broken English. “’I started thinking one day, “Why me? Why Kefas porter? So I study English.’”

Kefas told Cole when he came back to climb, he would be an assistant guide.
Cole kept in contact by email, and when he returned to reach Mount Kilimanjaro’s summit in 2013, he inquired about Kefas.
“He was not an assistant guide as he predicted,” Cole says. “I hired him as my guide. In three years, someone with an upward-mobility mindset in a third world country had really, really, really progressed.”
On this second climb, Cole raised awareness and more than $20,000 for the Alzheimer’s Association. He plans to visit Tanzania again to go on safari.

But, according to Cole, doing what he loves means he doesn’t need a vacation to escape anything. He goes horseback riding and plays basketball several times a week and walks/hikes daily—all part of his passion for self-improvement.

“I’m very thankful to be working in the field that has been my lifelong hobby,” Cole says. “We have five nationally-certified trainers who are a pleasure to see every day—there’s as much fun, laughter and good conversation as there is exercise. This is the best work imaginable.”